Vasyl Stus. As Long as We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine

“As long as we’re here, everything will be fine” was an affirmation coined by Vasyl Stus in a letter to his friend Anatolii Lazorenko in 1962. These words will find purchase with those who crave steadiness amid the whirl of a turbulent world. Ukraine’s past is full of guiding figures; Vasyl Stus, in particular, has become something of a cult icon—a beacon for the restless.

At the same time, the project team, through the heroic image of Stus, invites visitors to meet a brilliant intellectual, a poet, critic, and publicist whose work is tightly bound to clear ethical principles. It’s awe-inspiring how, as a young man, the poet shaped lofty moral ideals—and he carried them, unwavering, through the rest of his life. In an effort to “not fall prey to defilement” and steer clear of hypocrisy and falsehood, Stus grew a thorn in the side of those in power. His close circle would find him hard-to-understand, and eventually, weighed down by solitude, he would stand up “alone against the whole world.”

The project offers an extensive selection of archival materials to illuminate Vasyl Stus’s oeuvre and delve into the contexts of his era. Tape recordings from the 1960s—Vasyl Holoborodko and Iryna Zhylenko reciting his verses—evoke the ambience of Ivan Svitlychny’s legendary apartment on Umanska Street. The exhibition also features recordings of Vasyl Stus’s own voice, lovingly kept on reel by friends, and Nadiia Svitlychna’s Radio Liberty reading of Palimpsests.

Moreover, contemporary cultural leaders bring their own voices to Vasyl Stus’s poetry: Serhii Zhadan, Akhtem Seitablaiev, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Yaryna Chornohuz, Myroslava Barchuk, Kateryna Kalytko, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Tetyana Ogarkova, and Taras Kompanichenko.

The exhibition will also feature works by Alla Horska, Opanas Zalyvakha, and Halyna Sevruk. Through documentary reconstructions, visitors will learn how samvydav (resistance through domestic production of banned publications in the USSR—tr.) evolved into tamvydav (its exile-born counterpart—tr.) and how the KGB compiled evidentiary dossiers against dissidents under Operation Bloc.

Built on metaphor and allusion, the exhibition’s architecture transports visitors into the 1960s–1980s, allowing them to feel that era’s atmosphere and revealing narrative and thematic continuities echoing today.

Olha Melnyk, project curator:

“Visitors should not expect this exhibition to retell Vasyl Stus’s well-known biography. Instead, we’ve foregrounded several core stories opening up his poetic, literary, and journalistic worlds. Crucially, all of them are being told by those who experienced them—participants and witnesses to Stus’s life. In the literal sense, their first-hand testimony will constitute a frank and open discussion, unedited and immersing us in the interconnected artistic, political, personal, and social milieu of the 1960s–1980s.”

CURATORIAL TEXT

The attentive viewer will note how closely Vasyl Stus’s life milestones feel to our own. Under more favourable circumstances, he could have lived into the present. With that, the poet is rather perceived as our contemporary, and the facts of his biography align with our own lives. The exhibition also features contemporary voices that parallel past experiences. For instance, we tell about Donetsk students both in the late 1950s and early 2000s. Separated by half a century but united by the search for meaning and identity, they enjoy playing chess and, of course, iconically for Donetsk, football.

“Vasyl Stus. As Long As We’re Here, Everything Will Be Fine” is Mystetskyi Arsenal’s first project dedicated to historical heritage since Russia launched its full-scale invasion against Ukraine.

The exhibition will be held in six halls of the Old Arsenal building.

Project curator: Olha Melnyk
Project Manager: Yuliia Naidukh

You can visit the exhibition from November 13, 2025, to February 8, 2026.
Working hours: Wednesday-Sunday, from 12 PM to 7 PM (Ticket Office is open until 6.30 PM)
More about tickets

The exhibition is organised in cooperation with Art Arsenal Community NGO, with the support of the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU).

The Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU) is a multi-donor programme funded by Canada, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. PFRU’s objective is to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian aggression by delivering essential support to local communities in collaboration with the Ukrainian government, civil society, and the private sector.

Project partners: The Sixtiers Museum, National Museum of Literature of Ukraine, National Art Museum of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Museum-Archive of Ukrainian Samvydav at the Smoloskyp Publishing House, Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, StusCentre Public Association, Kyiv History Museum, PEN Ukraine, Dukat Art Foundation, Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin, Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theater, The Ivan Honchar Museum National Centre of Folk Culture, National Historical Library of Ukraine, Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, Cambridge.ua.

Exhibition’s technical partner is ERGO.

❗ We care about everyone’s safety, so in case of an air raid alert, the exhibition will be closed. At this time, you can go to the nearest shelter. The exhibition will start working after the end of an air raid alert.